  To my Mother. As I turn over the pages of this my first book, and mark here and there a name which use has made familiar, I feel the more, that, but for your sympathy and encouragement, much would still remain unwritten. With me you have sorrowed over the untimely death of “Little Charlie.” “Bertha,” with her precious gifts,—whereof so many stand in need,—has grown to you and me not a child of fancy, but a living presence. “Little Floy,” and the “Child of the Street,” will recall, to your mind as to mine, the touching lines of Mrs. Browning:— “Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers! Ere the sorrow comes with years? They are leaning their young heads against their mothers; And that cannot stop their tears. The young lambs are bleating in the meadows; The young birds are chirping in the nest; The young fawns are playing with the shadows; The young flowers are blowing toward the West: But the young, young children, O my brothers! They are weeping bitterly,— They are weeping in the play-time of the others, In the country of the free. They look up with their pale and sunken faces, And their looks are sad to see; For the man’s grief abhorrent draws and presses Down the cheeks of infancy.” To you, then, I dedicate this book,—which is partly yours, in spirit, if not in deed,—confident, that, whatever may be its shortcomings in the eyes of others, it will find a kindly welcome at your hands. |
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